DETROIT - AMIGA TECHNICAL INFORMATION INSTALLING TO HARD DRIVE Step One: Insert disk 1 into the internal drive and disk 2 into the external drive if you have one. Turn the machine on. The Workbench will load. Double click on the disk icon labelled "DETROIT". A window will open, showing three icons. Step Two: Double click on the icon that says "HDInstall" and select the device to which you wish to install the game. You may install to the Hard drive partition of your choice, to RAM or to PCMCIA Card. Step Three: You will be asked to specify a directory name into which the game files will be installed. The default name is DETROIT. Press enter to accept this name. To choose a different name, backspace through the default name and type in your own choice. Press enter when finished. Step Four: The computer will install disk 1 and then prompt you for the second disk if it is not in an external drive. The installation will continue automatically after you insert the disk (you do not need to press a key to continue). You will then be prompted to insert the third disk. The machine will display "Installation Complete" when it has finished installing the game. Click on this screen to return to the workbench. PLAYING FROM HARD DRIVE Double click on the icon representing the hard drive partition or device to which you installed the game. then double click again on the game directory. The game icons will appear. Double click on the icon named "DETROIT" to begin playing the 32 color version. If you have an A1200, or an A4000, then click on the icon named, "DETROIT_AGA" to play the 256 color version PLAYING FROM FLOPPIES Note: We recommend that you backup your disks before attempting to play the game. Step One: Ensure disk 1 is write enabled and insert it into the internal drive. Insert disk 2 into your external drive if you have one. Turn the machine on. The workbench will load. Double click on the disk icon labelled "DETROIT" A window will open showing three icons. Step Two: Double click on the game icon named "DETROIT" to play the 32 color version. If you have an A1200 or an A4000, then click on the icon named "DETROIT_AGA" to play the 256 color version. The title screen will appear; click on it to continue. The machine will prompt you to change to the second & third game disks at the appropriate time. Follow the on screen instructions. Note: When playing from floppy disks, you may prefer to reduce the number of "disk swaps" required by disabling music and sound effects (in the configuration panel, in the Administration Building) DETROIT - OWNERS MANUAL Thank you for buying this product. It is the result of a great deal of hard work and careful thought, and we hope that it will give you many hours of enjoyment. We are proud of our games, but we know that they can never be perfect. If you have any ideas about how we can improve, we would be delighted to hear from you. Please take the time to fill out the enclosed registration card. We can then add you to our mailing list, and keep you informed of new products and special offers as they come out. Please read the file on your game disk entitled README.TXT for information on changes made and additional features added to DETROIT after this this manuscript went to press. TABLE OF CONTENTS Welcome to DETROIT Objectives Installation The Game Interface The Basics Starting Off in DETROIT The Main Factory Screen Essential Concepts Setting The Game options Getting Things Rolling Summary Of Game Play The Roads Must Roll: Producing Your First Car The One To Buy: Creating The Demand and Supplying It. Shifting Into High Gear he Car of the Future:Designing New Automobiles Your Own Personal Growth Industry: Expansion and Innovation Charting Your Progress Feedback: Gauging Your Progress with Reports Analysis: Finding Trends Over Time With Graphs WELCOME TO DETROIT Objectives DETROIT begins in the year 1908. The streets of the world are filled with horse drawn carriages and wagons, and no one has even heard of gas stations or auto mechanics bills. You're going to change all that. You are a bright young entrepreneur with a dream: to use the new technology of the assembly line to bring the automobile to the average man, and thereby to build a company that will last a hundred years and reach every corner of the globe. You start with a single factory, one sales office, $60,000 in capital funds and the design for a prototype car. From that foundation, you will guide your company's expansion, while constantly working to stay ahead of your competitors by creating better and better cars for your factories to produce. You'll make marketing decisions, hire and fire your employees, build and modernise your factories, invest in research to stay on the cutting edge of automobile technology, and incorporate that technology into successful designs for new cars. Your goal is to see to it that your company survives to the year 2008, and, in the process, becomes the most successful automobile manufacturer in the world. Happy Motoring! Installation For complete instructions on how to install DETROIT and where to find help if you need it, please refer to the technical Supplement and Tutorial booklet The Game Interface DETROIT is designed to be played equally well with a keyboard and mouse, or with a standard keyboard alone. Since most players prefer to play with the mouse this manual assumes that you have one. If you don't, you can find a complete list of keyboard commands on the included icon card The Mouse and the Pointer In general, clicking the left mouse button executes a command, and clicking the right mouse button causes the game to exit the current screen without executing any of the commands you may have entered. When you are told to click on something, assume that you should use the left mouse button unless the instructions specifically say otherwise. On every screen that appears in the game, you will see a number of command buttons, which appear as small rectangular boxes with keywords for various commands on them. Clicking on a command button is the easiest way to give instructions to DETROIT. In many cases when you click on a command button, additional screens or "panels" will pop up on your monitor with more command buttons or more information, or both. Most of the time the buttons are obvious but on some of the game screens they have been incorporated into the scenery. When the pointer is over a hidden button, the pointer symbol changes from a red "X" to a green arrow, and a message appears in the message box (which will be described a little further on) telling you what that button does. Most panels will have a button labelled Done or Exit, which you should click when you want the game to save your changes or execute your commands and then close the panel. Some panels will offer you a lettered list of choices, and expect you to highlight the one you want. You can do this by clicking directly on your choice, or by clicking and holding down the mouse button while dragging the pointer through the list until the one you want is reached, then releasing the mouse button. The Keyboard Input Box Sometimes, when you select a command button, a small rectangular window called a keyboard input box will pop up. This happens when DETROIT wants you to type in some information. If DETROIT is asking you to name something, such as your company, your save file, or the new car model you just designed, you should type in the name from the keyboard and press enter. The first letter of any such entry must be a character, not a space if you type a space accidentally press Escape and start over. If you want to edit the text already in the box, use the left arrow key to back up without erasing the entry. The mouse commands will not work when the keyboard input box is in use. Sometimes, when DETROIT is asking you for a number instead of a name, the use of the keyboard is given as an option instead of a requirement there will usually be two mouse command buttons nearby, one with a plus sign and one with a minus sign, which you can use to enter in the requested number. Clicking on these buttons raises or lowers the value in the box until you have the number you want. If you click on one of these buttons and hold the button down, the numbers will scroll rapidly in the indicated direction. If the number you want is very large, however, you can simply type the value in from the keyboard. Press Enter when you finish to return to mouse command mode (the mouse will not work while you are in keyboard input mode). To exit keyboard input mode without executing your changes, press the escape key. The Menu Mover DETROIT has a special feature to allow you to customise the appearance of your game to a certain extent. Each of the pop-up panels that appears on the screen will have a small yellow box in the upper left hand corner. By clicking on this box, and then clicking elsewhere on the screen, you can relocate the panel to any position you like. Once changed, the panel will show up in that position whenever it appears for the rest of the game, even after saving and restoring. When you begin a completely new game, however, your settings will be lost. In a multiplayer game, each player can customise the location of his own panels separately - the game will remember which arrangement goes with which player and will bring up the right one at the right time. If you click on the Menu Mover box and then decide you don't wish to relocate the panel after all, just right click and the panel will return to its original position. THE BASICS Starting Off in DETROIT Each time you start up DETROIT, you will be given the option to start a new game, load a previously saved game to continue playing it, or quit back to DOS. If you have already played and saved a game, you can select the Load button at this point. You will be given a list of up to twenty saved games to choose from, each preceded by a letter Highlight the game you want to load, then click on Use, and your game will be loaded and ready to play. If you are starting a new game, click on Start. The computer will present you with a number of panels that will appear only when you first begin a game, and not thereafter. Set the Number of Players First, you will be asked to set the number of players for the game. Each game can have up to four players. If there are fewer than four players, the remaining slots will be played by the computer. The first slot is automatically set to human and can't be changed. (We have assumed that the first player will be human; if this is incorrect, we apologise.) Each of the other three slots can be toggled between computer and human by clicking. Choose a Starting Territory Next, you will be presented with the territory Map screen. DETROIT divides the world into sixteen territories: Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, North-eastern USA, South-western USA, South-eastern USA, North-western USA, Canada, South America, Southeast Asia, Australia, Africa, China, Japan, India, and the Mid East. Choose one of these territories to be your starting area by clicking on it. Since DETROIT strives for historical accuracy, not all starting territories are equal. For your first game, we recommend starting in North America or Northern Europe. Later, for more of a challenge, you can choose other territories as your home base. In general, when lists of territories are displayed, your starting region will have a check mark beside it. Name Your Company and Your Car Once you have selected your starting territory, a keyboard input box will appear. Type in the name of your company ("Megabux Autos" for example), and press Enter. your company name may have up to fifteen characters in it, which may be letters, numbers, or spaces. Then do the same thing to name your prototype automobile. Once you have baptised your company and your car, you will be presented with the Main Factory Screen, and can begin playing. To Exit DETROIT At any point in the game, you may edit DETROIT by pressing Alt-X and confirming that you wish to edit to DOS. Your current game will not be automatically saved, however. If you want to keep your current game, use the disk icon or the file cabinet in Administration to save it before exiting. The Main Factory Screen. This screen shows a picture of your company's headquarters. At the bottom of the screen is a wood grain bar with a variety of information on it, called, simply enough, the Info Bar. Keep an eye on the Info bar, because there are several useful things on it. The Info Bar At the left hand edge of the Info Bar is a square box. When you start a game, this box will say "Jan 1908". As time progresses, this box will update to show you the current month and year of your game. At the right hand edge of the Info Bar is another square box. When you are on the main factory screen, this box shows a calendar-like grid called the Month End icon. Clicking on this box ends your turn. When you are on most other screens, this box displays a silhouette of a factory. Clicking on this icon returns you to the Main Factory Screen. When you call up a report or a graph to see your company's progress, this box holds an icon of a stack of papers under a red arrow. Click on this icon to close the report. The centre section of the Info bar shows you three things. At the top centre, your company's current funds are displayed, followed by your company's name. At the bottom centre is the message box. Whenever your pointer is over a command button, obvious or hidden, a message will appear in the message box telling you what that button does. Sometimes this may be your only source of information, so pay attention. Also, if you try to do something that the game doesn't permit, the message box will say "Message Present" to let you know that somewhere else on the screen, a panel has popped up explaining what you did that caused the problem. The Game Tools Between the message box and the End Turn/Return to Factory icon are six smaller icons. The first icon, the floppy disk, allows you to quickly and easily save your game at any point. The other five "gateway" icons will, when clicked on, take you instantly to one of the five main game areas as shown below. Floppy Disk: Saves your Game Bar Graph: Takes you to the Administration Office Screen World Map: Takes you to the Sales/Factory Screen Tools: Takes you to the Research Screen Newspaper: Takes you to the Marketing Office Screen Automobile: Takes you to the Design Screen Saving Your Game There are two ways to save your game for later play. The easiest way is to click once on the disk icon which appears on the info bar. You will be shown a lettered list of available game slots. Click on the slot you want to use, and enter the name of the saved game into the keyboard input box that appears. If you click on an already-occupied slot (one with a name other than "Empty"), you will overwrite the old game stored there, so be certain that's what you want to do before you do it. Up to twenty games may be saved at one time. Your game file will be saved in whatever directory DETROIT is being played from. The game in the A slot will be saved as DETROITA.SAV, the one in the B slot as DETROITB.SAV. and so on. The Factory Embedded in the picture of the factory are six hidden buttons, each corresponding to one of the buildings in the picture. These buildings are the places where you will manage the various aspects of your company. As you move your mouse pointer around on the screen, you will know when you encounter a button because the pointer will change to a green arrow and a message will appear in the message box telling you what building you are pointing to. Clicking on the button takes you inside the building, where you can get to work running your business. The use of each department will be covered later in this manual. Essential Concepts The two most important concepts in DETROIT are the ones most important to real businesses everywhere: Time and Money. Time: Beginning and Ending a Turn DETROIT is an entirely turn based game and has no real time component. Game time runs in months and years. Most operating costs are figured monthly, although a few aspects of the game are figured yearly, such as the inflation rate. You alone determine when the month is over by clicking on the Month End icon on the Info Bar. The number of game actions which may be performed during that month is limited only by your strategy and patience. After the Month End button has been selected, you will be presented with a Month End Summary Screen, showing all the possible game actions with a check mark displayed next to those you have taken. A confirmation box is also displayed. If you discover that there are further actions you'd like to take before declaring the month over, click on "No" and you will be returned to the Main Factory Screen. If you are certain you have done everything you wish to click on "Yes". If you are playing the game in single player mode, your company's Profit/Loss report (which will be explained later) will appear. When you are done reading it, click on the Close Report icon to begin your next turn. If the game is being played by more than one human player, a warning flag will appear to give the players the opportunity to change seats so that the next person's turn can begin. Money As should be obvious, money is very important in DETROIT. Every player starts with the same $60,000 in capital funds the speed with which that amount increases (or decreases) is the only measure of how well your company is doing. Most operating costs are deducted monthly, but some expenses are subtracted from your company's funds instantly, such as the cost for opening new sales offices and upgrading factories. Money from car sales accrues monthly. There are both obvious and easily controlled costs such as employee wages, and less controllable expenses such as transportation charges. You should always have more cash on hand than you think you will need. If your company funds ever drop to zero, you may take out up to three loans to save your company - but after the third strike, your company will go bankrupt and the game ends. Inflation will increase your operating costs as time passes, and wages will have to rise as well if you expect to keep and increase your work force. This will necessitate raising the prices on your cars - but raise them too fast, and you could wind up with a stockroom full of unsold autos, and a bankrupt company! If you get into a cash crunch through poor planning, you can turn to the bank for a loan, but the bank can be stingy and will expect a high rate of interest on the money it lends. DETROIT and Reality DETROIT is, above all else, an entertaining strategy game. We have endeavoured however to make it as historically accurate as possible without losing playability. The game takes into account issues such as the change in demand for different types of cars over the years, historical rates of inflation and wage increase, and differences in demand from one territory to another. For the easiest starting conditions, you may want to begin your business in North America or Northern Europe. For a more difficult game, you might pick China or Africa as your starting location. File Management You can, at any time, save your current game of DETROIT by clicking on the disk icon. You may also access the save file command, as well as other file management commands and the game options commands, from the file cabinet in the Administration office. From the Main Factory Screen click on Administration, and then click on the picture of the file cabinet at the right edge of the screen. Save: Allows you to save your current game. As with saving from the disk icon, click on the slot to which you want to save the game and enter the name into the keyboard input box. Load: Allows you to load a previously saved game to continue playing it. This option is also available at game start. Your current game will not be automatically saved. When you restore a saved game, your original save file remains. If you wish, you can assign the game a new name the next time you save it, so that you can go back and replay the game from the earlier save point if you want. Restart: After confirmation, this option will end the current game (without saving it) and return you to the start of the game. Quit: This option allows you to exit to DOS after confirmation. Your current game will not automatically be saved before exiting. You can also exit to DOS at anytime by pressing alt-X. Setting the Game Options. Select the Configure option in the file management menu to set the game options for DETROIT. Sound: Toggles the game's sound effect on and off. Music: Toggles the game's music on and off. Dissolve: Toggling this option changes the screen-exit effect from a gradual dissolve (when ON) to a slow fade (when OFF), which may speed up the transition on some computers. Delay: Use this option to set the length of time that message panels will remain on your screen before disappearing. Hold down the left mouse button to scroll rapidly through the settings. GETTING THINGS ROLLING Summary of Game Play There are several independent facets to DETROIT, all of which work to determine your company's success. When the game begins, you have a car design, some money and minimal facilities (one sales office and one factory in your chosen starting territory). Your first order of business is to get your prototype built and marketed so that your company has income to rely on for expansion. The next step is to invest in research, for without research, you will never have new parts to use in your cars and they'll quickly become obsolete. Once your technicians have made some advances, you will need to design new cars, put your factories to work making them, and get your sales offices selling them. When your company is securely grounded, you'll want to think about expanding into new territories: first by opening sales offices supplied by factories that already exist, and later by setting up new factories to supply sales offices in distant parts of the world. You will also need to make decisions along the way about what types of cars to sell where, when to upgrade your factory facilities, and when to stop production on car models that are no longer selling well. If you make wise decisions, your company will grow and prosper - but if you are foolish, bankruptcy lies around every corner. The Roads Must Roll: Producing Your First Car At game start, you have the following assets: one factory and one sales office in your starting territory; the design for your first car; and $60,000 in your checking account. What you don't have is cars to sell, so your first task will be to build some. Hiring, Firing, and Paying Your Employees In order to get your autos built, you need people to work for you. Employee relations are handled through Administration. Clicking on the Administration building on the main factory screen brings up the Administration Office with its four hidden buttons. The use of the File Management option has already been covered, and the use of Reports and the Bank will be covered later Click on the Personnel door to bring up the Personnel Menu. There are four buttons at the top of the screen (Benefits, Assm, Tech, and Done), a column showing the total monthly wages paid to all your employees, and two smaller inset panels where you will do your hiring and set wages. You can hire two types of employees: Assembly workers (shown as "Assm workers") to put your cars together, and Technicians, to work in your Research department. (You don't need to hire people for your sales offices they are automatically staffed) In each panel, a column of information appears. Avail tells you how many workers are available for you to hire. This number will change from month to month depending on the wages you set. Idle tells you how many workers you have hired but not assigned to job sites. Emp tells you how many workers you have who are assigned, and Wages is the monthly pay rate you have set for them. The subtotal will tell you how much money you are spending on your employees for that month. To put more people to work, click on Hire for the type of worker you want. A keyboard input box will appear. Enter the number of employees you want to hire, either with the mouse buttons or the keyboard, then click on Wage to set their monthly pay rate. If you want to lay off some employees, click on Fire and handle it the same way. Once you have hired some workers, click on Benefits to set aside a percentage of the total wages you are paying to be used for benefits for your workers. You don't have to give your workers benefits but it might be a good idea. Putting Your Employees to Work Once you have people hired, you have to give them work to do. Assembly workers need to be assigned to Factories, and Technicians need to be assigned to Research. There are two different paths you can take to assign your workers. Assembly workers are assigned through the Factories subpanel in the Sales/Factories section, and Technicians are assigned through the research Menu panel. On the Research screen. In addition, you can access either of these two screens directly from the personnel panel. Either way, you end up at the same set of screens. If you are assigning new employees, the personnel screen is the most direct, but if you are shifting your employee assignments around, you may find it more convenient to go straight to the appropriate area from the Main Factory screen. If you enter the Sales/Factories screen from the Main Factory, you will be shown the Territory Map. Click on the territory to which you want to assign factory workers. There will be a separate Sales/Factories panel for each of the sixteen world territories in DETROIT. If you enter the Sales/Factories screen from the Personnel screen, the panel for your starting territory will automatically show up. To assign workers to your factory, first be sure that you are in the correct territory screen. At the start, the panel for your starting territory should show one sales office in the Sales box and a level one factory in the Factory box. DETROIT allows you to have only one factory per territory - the number indicates how modern your factory is, not how many of them you have in that area. Click on Detail in the Factories box. This panel allows you to start, stop, and modify your assembly lines. Click on one of the assembly lines to highlight it, then click Model. A panel will pop up showing a list of your current car models. Highlight the model you want on that line (your prototype is your only option at the start) and then click Use. That model will show up on the selected assembly line. Next, click Assign, and a keyboard input box will appear. Enter in the number of workers you want to start working on that line. (The maximum number you can assign to a single line is two hundred and fifty five.) Repeat this process for each assembly line you want to get running. If you want to shift your workers around, highlight an assembly line and click on Free. Enter in the number of workers you want to free up by taking them off that line. Once the workers have been freed up, you can reassign them to another line with the Assign button. If you want to stop one of your assembly lines entirely, click on Stop. The use of the rest of the buttons on the Factory panel will be explained later. When you have opened sales offices or set up a factory in more than one territory, you can use the Prev and Next buttons on the Sales/Factory panel to cycle through the sixteen territories until you find the one you want to adjust. Clicking on List will show you how many sales offices you have in each territory, and what level factory, if any, is there. Once you've staffed your factory with workers, you want do the same thing for your Research department by assigning your newly hired Technicians to various projects. If you are already in the Personnel Menu, click on Tech to bring up the Research Menu. If you are at the Main Factory screen, click on the Research building to bring up the Research screen, then click on the picture of the lab technician to access the Research Menu. There are a total of seven hidden buttons on the Research screen When you access the Research Menu either through Personnel or through Research, a panel will pop up showing a list of the seven systems and parts that go into one of your cars: engines, brakes, suspension, cooling systems, body design, safety features, and luxury options. You can assign Technicians to do research on any or all of them. Highlight the part you want to be researched, then click on Assign. Set the number of Technicians for each research department with the keyboard input box in the same way you assigned Assembly Workers to your factory. (The maximum number you can assign is to one project is two hundred and fifty-five.) When you click on done for each part, a check mark will automatically appear in the box by that part on the main Research panel If, later on, you want to stop research on that part, you can manually toggle off the check box by clicking on it. Even if there are Technicians assigned to the part, no research will take place unless the check mark appears If you want to shift your Technicians around, highlight one of the parts, and click on Free to free up workers by taking them off that project They can then be reassigned to a different department with the Assign button. The One To Buy: Creating the Demand and Supplying It. Now that your factories are rolling, you have to do something to let people know that you have cars for sale, and get them interested in buying. You also have to see to it that your dealers have cars to sell to them. In other words, you have to market your wares, and get them out to the lot so they can be bought. Selling Your Cars From the Main Factory Screen, click on the Marketing building. The Marketing Office screen will appear, with the Info Bar at the bottom. You have several choices for what media to use to advertise your autos, but not all of them are available at the start. In order to advertise on Radio and Television, you'll have to wait until they've been invented. There are six hidden buttons on the Advertising Screen. Five are your marketing options, and the sixth brings up a quick reference Marketing List The Marketing List will give you a summary of the advertising expenditures you've set for each territory. Clicking on Prev and Next will let you cycle through the territories. Marketing decisions must be made separately for each territory in which you are trying to sell cars. Clicking on Billboards or Sports will bring up a keyboard input box with plus and Minus buttons. There is a minimum cost associated with each choice, and the price will increase over time as inflation takes its toll. Clicking on the plus button will cause the minimum amount to show up in the window. If you don't want to spend that much, either click on the minus button to change the amount back to zero, or right click to exit the panel, and go in search of more economical advertising medium. Magazines, Radio, and Television are slightly different. Clicking on these options will get you a list of various speciality markets in which you can advertise your cars. In Magazines for example you could choose to target Sports publications, or Women's magazines, or any of the others. For Radio and Television, you can decide what kinds of programs you want to air your commercials on. Highlight the publication or program area of your choice, and click on it. You will get a keyboard input box like the one for the other three options, which can be dealt with in the same way. You can't target specific models to specific markets, however there is no way to advertise just your sports cars in sporting magazines, or just your family wagons on television sitcoms. Advertising costs, like most costs, are deducted from your funds at the end of each month. Getting the Cars to the Buyers Now that your clever advertising campaigns have stirred up public interest, you have to get those cars into the showrooms. From the Main Factory Screen, click on the Sales/Factories building. The Territory Map will appear, with icons indicating where you have opened sales offices or factories. Sales offices are represented by a light blue building icon, with a number showing how many offices are open, and factories are represented by a black building icon where the number represents the factories level. At the start, you will see one of each icon in your starting territory (Refer to Territory Screen to see how the territory map would look with a sales office and factory in each territory) Click on the territory for which you want to adjust your sales offices or your factory. The Sales Offices and Factories panels will appear. (You saw these earlier when you were assigning your assembly workers and getting the assembly lines rolling. As explained before, you can also get to these panels through Administration: Personnel, if you choose.) The Next and Prev buttons on this panel allow you to cycle through the territories. In the Office panel, click on Detail. A screen will pop up showing you a list of models and prices, with a number of command buttons. Your prototype will appear in the first slot, highlighted. There are two things you need to do to get your cars to the dealers: the first is to establish supply lines from your factories so the cars will be shipped, and the second is to set the price. Both of these things are done from the Office Detail panel. A single factory in one territory can supply sales offices in a number of other territories, if it is making enough cars. When you begin the game you will have only one factory and one sales office, both in the same territory. Click on Supply Line. You will notice that you can have up to three supply lines for each territory, and that your starting territory is listed in the first slot. This shows that you already have one supply line automatically running from your factory in your starting territory to your sales office there. Any time you have a factory and a sales office in the same territory, that factory automatically becomes the first supply line for that office. Thus you do not need to do anything to set up the supply line for your first sales office. When you have factories and sales offices to several territories, arranging supply lines becomes a more complicated matter. This will be covered later, in the section on expanding your company. Setting a good price for your cars is crucial to your company's success, so DETROIT gives you a number of options for pricing your automobiles. Pricing strategies must be set individually for each territory. Make sure you are on the right panel before you start, then click on Office Detail Highlight one of your current production models from the lettered list, then click Price. A keyboard input box will appear, with a number of command buttons nearby. This panel automatically appears in the Single pricing mode, which allows you to set the price for a single model of car in a single area. The other three modes (Model, Territory, and Global) are useful only after you have multiple models of cars being sold in several territories, so they will be covered in the section on expanding your company. Use either the plus and minus mouse command keys or direct keyboard input to specify the price in dollars for the selected model. Click Done or press Enter when finished. on the displayed list of production models, the price will appear next to the model name and the box will turn into a check mark. As long as the check mark is toggled on, that model will be sold at that price in that location. If you decide not to sell that model from that showroom, click on the check mark to toggle it back into a box, and that car will no longer be offered for sale in that territory. SHIFTING INTO HIGH GEAR If your factory is building cars which are selling, and your company is operating at a profit you're off to a good start. It's time to think about what your next product is going to be, and to start extending your company's reach. The Car of the future: Designing New Automobiles Your prototype, great car though it is, won't stay in style forever. Your company is going to have to come up with something new to offer consumers if you want it to last more than a few years. Here's where your investment in Research pays off. Obtaining New Technology If you have invested in Research, sooner or later your Technicians will come up with some new automobile technology. When they do, at the start of the month a panel will appear informing you that new developments have been made. To find out what your people have come up with you can go to Research and call up the Systems Details panels. To see what the new part looks like, and to put it into a new car, you need to head over to your Design department. Designing a New Car From the Main Factory Screen, click on the Design building. The first page of the design worksheet will appear with your prototype car design displayed. There are two pages to each car design, the first for designing the body and look of the car, and the second, click on functional components that will make it run. To get from the first page to the second, click on Part. On the second page, click on Body to return to the first page. To begin an entirely new design, go to the first design page and click on New. The first design page shows you a summary of the components in the design for each car, and has command buttons to let you page through your current designs or load an old design from the Archives (the use of the Archives will be explained later). You can have up to sixteen current designs at a time. A picture of the car currently being worked on appears on the right side of the screen to the upper right hand corner of this inset display will be either the word "New" indicating that this design is in development, or a number such as "1/16" to indicate which of your sixteen current designs you are presently looking at. Most of the actual design work is done on the second page of the design worksheet. The one exception to this is the body of the car, which you specify on the first page. All other components the engine, brakes, suspension, cooling system, and luxury and safety features - are added from the second page. On the right hand side of the first page are the buttons that allow you to design the body for your new car. First, you need to decide what type of car you're building - a sports car? A van? A compact? Click on the Type button to cycle through your options. A basic body design for each vehicle type will be presented. After a basic type has been selected, you can then modify any or all of the three body sections (front, middle, and back) until the car is exactly to your liking. Highlight the section of the body you want to design, then click on the plus and minus keys to cycle through your options. Mix and match them to until you have the exact combination you want. Use the Color button to select a color scheme for your new model. When you are happy with the body of your vehicle click on Part to start designing the rest of it. The second page of the design screen has four boxes, one each for the Engine, Brakes, Suspension, and Cooling System. In each box, click on the plus and minus keys to cycle through the available choices for each part. If you want more information about a particular component click on Detail to pop up a screen with the design specifications. To add luxury or safety options to the new car, click on either the Luxury or Safety button. A list will pop up, showing which of each of these options has been added to the design. If you are starting from scratch, these lists will be empty. the small inset panel at the bottom allows you to cycle through the available options with the plus and minus keys. Click on Detail to get more information about the feature. To add an option to the car, highlight one of the lettered slots and click Use. The option that appears in the inset window will be added to the design. Likewise, if you highlight an option on the list and click Remove, that option will be taken off the car. You can add up to ten luxury and five safety options to one car. To return to the first page of the design, click on Body. Your design options will be very limited at first, until your Technicians provide you with enough new components to give you a decent selection to choose from. Once you have more than one design on the boards, you can click on Prev and Next on the first page of the design sheet to cycle through your current designs. When you fill up all of the sixteen available slots with car designs, you will have to make room for more, either by saving some of your current designs to the Archives or by getting rid of some designs. To file a design away in the Archives, click on Put, and the current design will be saved directly to the Archives. If you are unhappy with a design and want to get rid of it completely, click on Del, and after confirmation the current car design will be deleted permanently from your records. Sometimes, you may want to make modifications on an already existing design. If the design is current, you can simply make whatever changes you like, then save the new design under a different name. If the old design has been saved in the Archives, click on Get. The first page of the Archive records will appear. Click on the design you want, then click on Use, and the design will be put back onto the current list, assuming there is room for it (Click on Prev/Next on the Archive panel to page through the rest of the Archive records if the one you want isn't on the first page.) To see what a sample car design looks like, look at the design specifications for your prototype This is a very simple car, of the "Family Sedan" type. By clicking on Part, you can see that the only components the car has are the engine - a four-cylinder in line - and a simple hand brake. It has no suspension or cooling system, and no luxuries or safety devices. There's a lot of room for improvement. Testing Your New Design When you have designed a new car to your satisfaction, return to the first page of the design worksheet, and click Make. This directs your Technicians to make and test a prototype of your new automobile. A keyboard input box will pop up to allow you to name your new design, and ask you to confirm your decision to have the test car built. Then your test drivers will start putting the new car through its paces to check its performance. The testing screen allows you to choose which of five performance checks you want to put your new car through, and to watch the car as it is tested. Initially, the view screen at the top right shows an interference pattern. Once you start testing the car, this window allows you to watch the testing as it progresses. The five available testing categories are Acceleration, Braking, Handling, Capacity, and Fuel Economy. To order a test, click on the test name. The cost of the test will be added to the computer printout in the lower right quarter of the screen. Each test costs a different amount. To select all of the tests at once, click on Test All. When you have selected the tests you want, click on the button that says Run. The cost for materials and testing will be deducted from your funds, and the view screen will show you the car as it is put through its paces. If you don't wish to watch the tests as they take place, left click on the view screen as each test begins and the results will be instantly displayed. The testing results are read as follows; Acceleration: shows you how long in seconds it takes the car to go from zero to sixty miles per hour. Braking: tells you the distance required in feet for the car to go from seventy miles per hour to a full stop. Road Handling: gives you the number of gees at which the car stops holding the road. Capacity: "Seating" tells you the number of people the car can carry, and "Cargo" is the holding space the vehicle has in cubic feet. Fuel Economy: shows the miles per gallon of gasoline the car get in the city and on the highway. The Overall rating of the car is a percentage value showing how well that car is predicted to market as that type of vehicle. Different types of cars will require different emphasis in design: a van needs more cargo space than a sports car, while a sports car requires better acceleration than a van. Using the Archives You can have up to sixteen current car designs in production at any time. If you exceed that number, but still want to hang onto your older designs you will have to store them in the Archives. To reach the Archives, go to the Main factory Screen and click on the Archives building in the upper left part of the screen. The Archives panel will appear. Click on Put, and you will see a list of your sixteen current designs. To move one to the archives, highlight it, then click on Use, and the design will be taken out of the current list and stored. You can also bring an older design back from the archives if you discover a need for it. From the main archive panel, click on Get. A list of the first twenty archived designs will appear. You can archive a total of one hundred designs. To see the rest of the archives list, click on Prev and Next to cycle through the pages of the archives until you find the one you want. When you've located the design to be loaded, highlight it, then click on Use. The current design list will appear. Highlight an empty slot and click on Use in that window. The selected archive design will move to the current list. If you highlight an occupied slot on the current list and click Use, the selected current design and the selected archived design will swap places. If you should happen to use up all the space in your archives, or if you just want to keep your archive lists short and easy to handle, click on Delete from the main archives panel. The archived design list will appear. Highlight the design you want to get rid of and click Use. The game will ask you to confirm your instruction; if you are sure you won't ever want that design again, click Yes. Once a design is deleted from the archive, it's gone forever, so be sure you're finished with it before you confirm. Your Own Personal Growth Industry: Expansion and Innovation Opening up New Territories Setting up sales offices and factories in new territories greatly adds to the complexity of your game, and is essential. For your company's continued growth since a factory can supply sales offices in more than one territory if it is producing enough cars, you probably want to start your expansion by adding sales offices in territories close to your starting territory. The farther away from the factory your sales offices are, the higher the hidden incidental costs such as transportation fees will be for getting the cars to the showrooms. Because of this, it might not be a good idea to try to supply all your world-wide sales offices from a single factory. To open a new sales office, go to the Main Factory Screen and click on the Sales/Factories building. The Territory Map will appear. Click on the Territory you want to expand into. The Sales and Factory panels for that territory will appear. In the Sales Offices section, click on Open The cost of opening the new office will be immediately deducted from your company's funds. If you want to shut down a sales office, click on Close. Closing a sales Office is not free - it costs one-half of what it cost to establish the office in the first place, and as with Open the money is deducted immediately. Therefore,the game will ask you to confirm any office openings or closings. Since the deduction from your company's funds takes place straight away and cant be undone, decisions to open and close offices should be made with some care. You can open up to ten sales offices in any one territory. New icons will appear on the territory map each time you establish a sales office or factory in a new territory. Opening a new factory is very similar to opening up a new sales office. Click on Raise to establish a Level One factory in that territory. Clicking on Raise again will improve the level of your factory by one. A higher level factory is more efficient, but expansion gets progressively more expensive as the factory level increases. Clicking on Lower will downsize your factory at a cost of one third the price of expansion. As with sales offices, costs for improving or downsizing your factories are immediately deducted from your company funds Pricing and Supply on a Global Scale Once you have more than one model of car to sell, more than one factory producing your cars, and more than one territory to sell them in, pricing and supply become more complicated. The possible strategies for arranging your supply lines and setting your price strategies multiply enormously. To set up new supply lines for a territory, or change existing ones, go to the Main Factory Screen and click on the Sales/Factories building. The Territory Map will appear. Click on the territory where you want to adjust your supply lines or prices. The Sales Office/Factory panel will appear. Each territory has its own panel, so make sure you're in the right territory before you start making changes. If you wind up in the wrong territory, clicking on Prev and Next will allow you to cycle through territories until you find the right one. Clicking on List from any territory panel will give you a summary of the number of sales offices and the level of the factory, if any, in each territory. In the Sales Offices section of the panel, click on Detail, then on Supply Line to get the three slot lettered list of supply lines for that office. If there is no factory in your new sales area, you will have to arrange to have the cars shipped in from elsewhere. Click on one of the three lines to highlight it, then click on the plus and minus buttons to cycle through the available territories until you find the one you want. Naturally, you have to have a factory established in a territory before you can use it as a supply line. To stop shipping cars, cycle through the territories until you find the "None" option. You may remove the automatic in territory supply line from a factory in the same area, if you wish. When your supply lines are set, click on Price. You will have to set the initial price for each separate model of car you want to sell from that office using Single mode as described earlier. The other three buttons can be used to make more sweeping changes in the prices of your cars. Clicking on Model allows you to raise or lower the cost of a particular model of car in every territory. It doesn't matter which territory panel you are currently using - the change will be applied everywhere that model is being sold. Use the plus and minus keys or direct keyboard input to change the price on that model by percentage of the current cost, not by dollar amount. To lower the price, click on the minus key until you get negative numbers. Clicking on Territory changes the price for every model of car being sold in the current territory. Again, the change is in percentage of the current prices, not dollar amount. Similarly clicking on Global allows you to adjust the prices on every model in every territory. Note that if you are selling a particular model of car in a certain territory there must be a supply line going to that territory from a factory which is making that particular model of car. It's pointless to tell your salespeople to sell "Megabux Electras" if none of the factories that are supplying them with cars are producing Electras. Once you've supplied your new sales area with cars, and set the pricing strategy, be sure to remember to head over to marketing and spend some advertising money in that new territory, if you want your cars to sell. Using the Bank The bank is the place to go if you are expecting a cash crunch, are looking to finance a costly new expansion, or want to put some of your money away to accrue interest for a while. To get to the bank, go to the Main Factory Screen and click on Administration. When the Administration Office appears, click on the phone. The banking panel will pop up. The top section of the panel shows your current funds (in Checking), your funds in savings, and the current yearly interest rate accrued on your savings. (Your checking account does not earn interest). To transfer money from checking to savings, click on Check. A keyboard input box will appear for you to enter the amount of money you want to transfer. Likewise to shift money from savings to checking, click on Save and enter the amount. The bottom section of the panel shows your current loans, and the yearly interest rate the bank will charge you for the use of its money. To take out a loan, click on Loan and enter the amount in the keyboard input box. If the bank agrees to the loan, the money will be added to your checking account. If the loan is denied, the box will clear when you press enter, and you'll have to try again. Click on Term to set the length of time you want the loan to cover. This will determine the size of your monthly payments. The minimum payment on your loan will be deducted from your checking account automatically at the end of each month. If you want to pay more than the minimum in a given month, click on Repay and enter in the amount. It will be deducted from your checking account and the amount remaining on your loan will be reduced. CHARTING YOUR PROGRESS So by now you've hired people, put them to work in the factories and in your research department, advertised your product, set the price tag, and got the cars shipped to the showroom. Maybe you've even expanded your operations already. Your cars are selling, but you need to plan for the future. Or perhaps your cars aren't selling, and you need to figure out where the problem lies. Your trusty staff of researchers and accountants stands ready to assist your business decisions with a wide variety of reports and graphs to show you just how well your company is or isn't doing. (Note: Some additional reports and graphs may have been added to DETROIT since this document went to press. Please see the Technical Supplement and Tutorial booklet for details.) Feedback: Gauging Your Progress with Reports. Reports give you a picture of how well your company is doing in the short term. Each report shows the figures for the month just past, and only for that one month. To get reports, enter the Administration Office screen and click on the pile of papers in the centre of the desk. (if you do this in the first month, you will see that there are no reports available, since you have not started production yet). A menu of available reports in the first two columns and graphs in the third one. Click on one of the report buttons to bring up that report. All reports are free with the exception of the Demand report, which must be commissioned from an outside research agency and paid for when ordered. Click on the stack of papers under the red arrow pictured at the right end of the info bar to close a particular report or graph. Many of the reports and graphs have word-toggles you can click on to obtain more information or change the way the information is presented for viewing. all text that appears in red is associated with a toggle and may be clicked on to change the display. When you are finished reading reports, click on Done to return to the Administration Office. PROFIT/LOSS The Profit/Loss Report is the most basic indicator of your company's health. In addition to being available through the Report menu, these figures are automatically presented to you at the start of each new month. The first column shows you your company's itemised expenses, while the second shows your income by territory. Click on Income to toggle your view of your profits between model and territory. TERRITORY This report gives you detailed information on how well you are doing in each territory in which you have an installation. Click on the territory name to cycle through your territories (only those areas in which you have sales offices or factories will appear) There are five columns of information on this screen, each of which can be toggled between two different sets of information. To toggle the column, click on the column header Toggles: First model name/model type column: Second the number of assembly lines making each car/the column: price of the car in that territory Third the number of cars built in that territory in column: the previous month/the labour costs for making each car Fourth the number of cars sold in that territory in the column: previous month/the material costs for making each car. Fifth the number of cars in stock in that territory/ column: the profit made on each car at the current price MODEL This report tells you how well each of your models is doing in each territory. Click on the model name to cycle through your current models. There are four columns of information on this sheet, each of which can be toggled between two sets of information. To toggle the column, click on the column header. (The column titled "Territory" does not toggle) Toggles: Second column: the number of assembly lines making each car/ the price of the car in that territory. Third column: the number of cars built in that territory in the previous month / the labour costs for making each car. Fourth column: the number of cars sold in that territory in the previous month / the materials costs for making each car Fifth column: the number of cars in stock in that territory/ the profit made on each car at the current price COMPARE This report is your main source of information on how well your competition is doing. from this report you can see the expenses, income, and profit or loss margin for each of your three competitors. (There are no toggles on this screen.) MARKET T This report shows your marketing expenses arranged by territory. Click on the territory name to cycle through the territories. Click on the word "Territory" to toggle the display between the sums for each territory to the total sums for all territories. MARKET M This report is very similar to Market T, except that your marketing expenses are arranged by media type. Click on the media type to cycle through the available media. Click on the word "Media" to toggle the display between the sums for each media type to the total sums for all media. DEMAND This report is the only report that costs you money to acquire. To obtain a demand report, select a car model to get a report on by clicking on it, then click Use. You may get a demand report on only one model per month. Select the territories you wish a report on by clicking on them. You may select as many territories as you like, at a cost of $100 per territory. Click on Use to order the report. The game will ask you to confirm the order. when you do so the cost will be immediately deducted from your company's funds and the demand report will appear on the screen showing you how many cars could have been sold in that territory in the past month. The demand in a particular territory may change from one month to the next based on your competitor's actions, your own advertising, or other factors. Once ordered, the demand report cannot be changed until the next month - you may not change the model type or add to or subtract from the territories list. The second and subsequent times you order a demand report, you will first be given the option of ordering a New report or viewing the last demand report you purchased (click on Old). Only the last report is available. DISTRIBUTION This report shows you the supply lines for each of your sales offices. Click on the territory name to cycle through the territories. By clicking on any column heading you can change the display to show you the transportation costs involved in maintaining each supply line. Analysis: Finding Trends Over Time with Graphs Graphs allow you to gauge your company's progress over an extended period. The information available in the graphs is more concise and therefore less detailed than the information you can get from reports. Graphs can be accessed from the same place reports are accessed. Click on one of the buttons in the third column of the Reports/Graphs menu to bring up a graph. Click on the stack of papers icon at the right side of the info bar to return to the Reports/Graphs menu, and click Done to return to the Administration Office Profit The vertical axis on this graph shows you your profits for each month, compared to those of your competitors. By clicking on the scale indicator for the vertical axis, you can toggle the scale for a range of settings from tens of dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars. Only those scales which are appropriate for the profit levels shown will be available, however, so if the most any company made in any month shown was $2000, you will not be able to change the scale to anything greater than thousands of dollars. The horizontal axis displays seven months of profit records. A year's worth of records are kept stored at a time. To access months not currently visible on the screen, click on the first or last month displayed. Production The vertical axis on this graph shows you how many cars you and your competitors built each month. The vertical axis scale can be changed to range from tens to hundreds of millions of cars produced per month. Only those scales which are appropriate for the production levels shown will be available, however, so if no company produced more than sixty cars in any month shown, the scale will not go above tens of cars. As with profits, the horizontal axis displays seven months worth of production records, and up to a year can be viewed by clicking on the first or last month displayed to scroll the printout. Sales The vertical axis on this graph shows you what your income from car sales is for each month, compared to those of your competitors. The numbers shown are for total income over all models of cars being produced. The vertical axis scale can be changed to range from tens to hundreds of millions of dollars in sales per month. Only those scales which are appropriate for the sales levels shown will be available. As with profits, the horizontal axis displays seven months' worth of sales records, and up to a year can be viewed by clicking on the first or last month displayed to scroll the printout. Subsys Level This graph shows you what level of advancement your automobile subsystems have achieved, relative to those of your competitors. The vertical axis shows the percentage of the level possible in the game that you have reached for each of the seven systems. There is a built in limit to the rate at which you can acquire new technology through research, so you should not expect to reach 100% quickly, even if you put maximum investment into your research department. The horizontal bar shows each of the seven systems, abbreviated as follows: ENG = Engines, BRA = Brakes, SUS = Suspension, COO = Cooling, BOD = Bodies, SAF = Safety, and LUX = Luxury. DETROIT - KEYBOARD COMMANDS The keyboard commands for DETROIT have been set up to be as straightforward as possible for players who can't (or don't wish to) use a mouse, or for players who find some aspects of the game easier to work with through the keyboard. Most of the game can be played from the keyboard by following a few simple rules. A few screens, however require special information. Command Buttons: Nearly all commands which are represented through mouse command buttons can be executed from the keyboard by pressing the letter key highlighted on the button itself. For plus and minus buttons, use the plus and minus keys except (or those on the second design screen (see accompanying diagram). Lettered Lists: Press the letter of the item you want to select it from a lettered list. In some cases the item can be deselected by pressing the letter a second time. Exiting Screens: Press Escape to exit the current screen. Each time the key is pressed, you will go back one level, so it may be necessary to press it more than once to get all the way out. In many places, pressing D (for "Done") will also allow you to exit. Archives: To access the archives, go to the Main Factory screen and press C. Model Testing: To test your new car designs, press the first letter of each test desired. (Acceleration = A, Braking = B, and so on) Press T to select all the tests, and R to run. Reports and Graphs Profit/Loss: To toggle from income by territory to income by model, press T. Territory: To toggle each column of information, press the number of that column (i.e. to toggle the third column, press 3). To cycle through the territories, press N. Model: To toggle each column of information (ignoring the first which does not toggle), press the number of that column. To cycle through the territories, press N. Market T: Press T to see marketing totals. Press N to cycle through the territories. Market M: Press T to see marketing totals. Press N to cycle through the media types. Distribution: Press N to cycle through the territories. Press 1 to toggle between supply lines and transportation expenses. GAME TOOLS F4 Save Game F5 Jump To Administration F6 Jump To Sales/ Factories F7 Jump To Research F8 Jump To Marketing F9 Jump To Design F10 Jump To Factory Esc Close Report ADMINISTRATION P Personnel F Files R Reports/Graphs B Bank MARKETING T Television L Marketing List B Billboards S Sporting Events M Magazines and Newspapers R Radio RESEARCH B Brakes Detail C Cooling Detail S Suspension Detail A Safety Detail E Engine Detail R Research Menu L Luxury Detail DESIGN PAGE TWO 1 Previous Engine 2 Next Engine 3 Previous Brake 4 Next Brake 5 Previous Suspension 6 Next Suspension 7 Previous Cooling 8 Next Cooling TERRITORY MAP A Northern Europe B Southern Europe C East Europe D North East USA E South West USA F South East USA G North West USA H Canada I South America J Indonesia K Australia L Africa M China N Japan O India P Middle East NEWS! EXTRA GAME FEATURES! READ THIS, DON'T IGNORE IT!!! Several features were added to the game after it shipped, and a couple were modified. Here are the details, plus some clarifications of existing, unchanged rules. We also have an apology to make. In order to print this file: 1. Turn on your printer 2. Change into the directory that you installed DETROIT to. So, if you installed DETROIT into the default directory, type CD\DETROIT 3. Type PRINT README.TXT MODEM PLAY Just before the launch of the game, problems were discovered in the modem play module. Rather than delay the launch, we decided to ship the game with the modem option removed, and make a fixed version available free to all users as soon as it is ready. We apologise deeply for this, and hope you understand that everyone WILL be able to get this option soon, and for free. The fastest way to get hold of this update is to download it. It will be available on our own BBS and on CompuServe & Genie. We will make announcements on these boards as soon as the update is ready. Again, we really are sorry. DIFFICULTY OPTIONS After you select the START option, you will see the DIFFICULTY MENU. This gives you several levels of difficulty at which you can play the game. When following the TUTORIAL, select the MEDIUM difficulty button. SOUND EFFECTS On slower machines, playing sound effects may slow the game further, so you may wish to turn sound effects off. Also, AdLib samples play the quickest, so owners of AdLib compatible cards (e.g. SoundBlasters), may wish to use the SETUP program, and choose AdLib as their sound card. STRIKE RESOLUTION MENU If your workers go on strike due to low wages, you will be presented with the Strike Resolution Menu. This presents you with the workers' wage demands and a box for you to make a counter offer. If the workers accept the offer, you have avoided a strike. If not they strike, and will produce nothing that month. The Strike Resolution Menu will return every month until the strike is resolved. WORLD WAR I, THE GREAT DEPRESSION, WORLD WAR II, OIL CRISIS During the World Wars, the Depression and the 1970's oil crisis, the Demand for your automobiles will fall drastically, so don't be surprised by sudden cuts in profit. AUTOMATION & WAGES The amount which you pay each assembler reflects not only their actual salary, but also all of the equipment which you have in your factory for them to use, so they may seem high. Also, over time, each factory you own will become more and more efficient. This reflects the effect of modernised equipment and automation. However, this modern hardware will cost you: the amount you pay per assembler will rise steadily, over and above inflation. PUBLIC DOMAIN TECHNOLOGY Technology becomes publicly available if 3 companies have developed it not 2. UPDATING MODELS When you Update an existing model, any existing stock will be converted into stock of the new model. For this, you will be charged a fee equal to twice the difference in the Material Costs between the old and new model. MODEL'S OVERALL RATING AND MATERIAL COST On the top left hand side of the Car Design screen, you will now see the Model's Overall Rating and Material Cost. BODY BUTTON The BODY Button, to the right of the TYPE Button, represents the FOUR basic body styles available for your car designs. BUY BUTTON If you wish, you may now buy a car design from a design team outside of your company. This will cost a substantial amount. To do this, use the BUY button, at the top left corner of the Car Design screen. BODY TECHNOLOGY LEVELS As you research new Body Technology Levels you will be able to design new types of cars, such as Compacts. CHECKING & SAVINGS In the Banking Menu, the CHECK button moves money from your Savings to your Checking account. The SAVE button does the opposite. These were reversed in the manual. LOANS In order to change the TERM of your loan, you must FIRST change the Term to the length you wish, and then request the loan. Once a loan has been taken, there can be no negotiating a new Term. MEGA-MENU A new Menu has been added to the game. It combines all the menus in the Sales & Factory screen into one. Once you become comfortable with the Menus in the Sales & Factory screen, you may find this one to be quicker. Because of the number of buttons on this screen, it was impossible to include any keyboard hot keys, so you will need a mouse to use it. STOP BUTTON On the left side of the Factory Menu is the STOP button. This will free all workers on a line, and clear the Model being produced by that line. To use the button, highlight the line you wish to affect, and hit the STOP button. CLOSING SALES OFFICE & FACTORIES Closing a Sales Office or Factory earns you money. A Sales office that is Closed will generate $2,500, while a Factory that is Lowered will generate 1/3 of what it would cost you to buy that factory. SUBSYSTEM REPORT GRAPH The Subsystem Graph represents Technology currently being INCLUDED in a production vehicle and not those Technologies that have been developed but not incorporated in a production vehicle. PRINTING REPORTS You may only print reports that have a printer icon below the exit report button. This includes all written reports, but not the Graph reports. NUMBER PAD In order to use the Number Pad on your keyboard, you must have the NUMLOCK key activated. DETROIT - TUTORIAL QUICK START TUTORIAL This tutorial is meant for the player who wants to get started playing DETROIT right away. If you follow it step by step, it will take you through the first month of a typical game and show you how to control all of the major elements you'll need to get your business going. Once you 're familiar with the basics, you'll probably want to consult the manual to get all the details and learn about those features not covered here. Precise numbers to use for various aspects of the game (worker wages, car prices, and so on) have been deliberately left out of this tutorial. Many players prefer to discover the best numbers to use through trial and error. If you would like to have some numbers to ensure that you will make a profit in the early stages of the game, please see the card included elsewhere in the game package. This tutorial assumes that you are playing DETROIT with a mouse. If not please see the Keyboard Command Card included in the game materials for the keyboard equivalents of the Mouse commands. When the tutorial says to click on a command use the left mouse button unless the instructions specifically say otherwise. Clicking on the right mouse button will usually allow you to exit the current screen or panel; use this if you accidentally wind up somewhere you don't want to be while you are following this tutorial. DETROIT is a turn-based game, so you don't have to rush while working through this tutorial. Take your time. Getting Started Start DETROIT by following the instructions in the Installation and Loading section of this booklet. You can click any mouse button to move through the title screens quickly, if you wish. You will see the Start Options panel superimposed on the Main Factory Screen (which will be described in a moment). Click on the Start button. The Player Setup panel will appear. It should show Player 1 as human (that's you, we hope) and Players 2 through 4 as the computer. You don't want to change this now, so just click on Done. Next, you will see the Territory Map with the sixteen game territories shown in different colors. (You may see some animation on this screen, and on most of the other screens in the game. Don't worry about it - nothing is happening to your game. It's just there for your amusement so relax and enjoy it.) Put the mouse pointer on the North-eastern section of the USA (which is brown) and click. A keyboard input box will appear for you to enter the name of your company. You can press Enter to accept the default name ("Company 1") if you want but that's pretty dull, so we suggest you choose something more interesting. The name can be up to fifteen characters and contain letters or numbers. When you start typing, the default name will automatically vanish and your new name will appear. Press Enter when you've finished. A similar panel will appear asking you to name your first car model. Again press Enter to accept the default or just start typing to give it a different name. Press Enter when you're done, and the Main Factory Screen will appear. At the start of the game, you have $60,000 in funds and one fully designed and tested model of car to sell. You begin with one factory in your starting territory which has one assembly line running, producing your first car model, and one sales office in your starting territory, which is selling it. You have enough assembly workers hired to man your single assembly line, and a small number of research technicians on your payroll waiting to be assigned to development projects. You will start out with some initial numbers automatically assigned for workers, wages, prices, and so forth, but these numbers, while they may be reasonable values to use, are not optimal. You'll have to experiment (or refer to the enclosed card) to determine which numbers are actually best. Take a Look at Your Factory The Main Factory Screen is where you will access the various departments that make up your company. Most of the screen shows the factory itself with its six buildings. Clockwise from the top right, they are: Design (light blue), Research (pink), Sales/Factories (blue roof and skylight), Administration (grey), Archives (red brick), and Marketing (brown with billboard) in the centre. At the bottom of the screen is the wooden Info Bar. From the left, the Info Bar shows: * The current month and year of your game (it should say "Jan 1908") * Your company's current funds ($60,000) * The rectangular Message Box, which will often tell you useful things * Your company name * The six toolbar icons (see below) * The Month End button (with the calendar grid pictured on it) On this screen, and on most of the other main screens in the game, there are mouse command buttons worked into the scenery itself. The manual will give you a complete list of all the buttons on each screen and what they do, but for this tutorial we'll only be telling you about the ones you need to use right now. You can tell when you've found a hidden button on the screen because the mouse pointer will change shape from a red "X" to a green arrowhead, and a description of that button will appear in the Message Box on the Info Bar. Design a New Car Although in a real game you won't want to start off by building new cars right away, for the purposes of teaching you the game, that's where this tutorial is going to start. Move the mouse pointer over the Design building, checking in the Message Box to make sure you have the right building, and click. The first page of the Design Worksheet will appear. Your first car will be showing in the display box in the top centre. You can have up to sixteen current designs at one time. The black numbers in the upper right corner of the display window tell you which design you're currently looking at (right now it should say "1/16", since you are looking at your first (and only) stored design out of the sixteen maximum you can save as current.) The other areas on this screen tell you some of the specifics of the car you are currently looking at. It has a four-cylinder 747 cc engine, a hand brake, and not much else. It's of the "family sedan" type. To start a new car, click on the button marked New, located at the top of the column to the left of the display window. The display window will go blank, and the top right corner of the display window will change to read "New". The first thing to do is to set a body type for your car. There are four basic body types: two-door, four-door, van, and truck. Your new car will be a two-door so click on the button marked Body until you see "Body Style: 1" appear just below the display window. Next, click on Type to select the functional type of car you're trying to build. The type indicator is just below the button marked "Next." Keep clicking on Type to cycle through types of cars you can build until you come to Family Sedan, and stop. Your new product will be a two-door family sedan to go with your four-door family sedan. Now, you need to design the body of your new car. Under the display window, find the three-letter list. The first slot should be highlighted. This slot controls the design of the front section of your car. Click on the mouse button marked with a Plus sign, and watch the car change. (Use the Minus key to back up) Stop on the choice called Front 2. Now click on the second slot to highlight it, and use the Plus and Minus keys to look at the options for the centre of your car. Select Middle 2. In the same way, highlight the third slot and set the back of the car to Rear 3. To move to the second page of the design worksheet, click on the Part button (second from the top in the column at the left side of the display window). On this screen, you can see pictures of the internal components of your car. At the moment, you only have one model of engine and one type of brake available and none of the other four systems that might be included (Suspension, Cooling, Safety Options, and Luxury Options.) Later, if you invest in Research, you will have more to choose from, but for now your new family sedan is going to have to have the same internal systems as your original family sedan. Go to the box marked "Engine", and click once on the Plus button. This will bring up a picture of your engine, a 747 cc four-cylinder, and install it into your new design. Go to the box marked "Brakes" and click once on the Plus button to add a hand brake to the car. Then click on Body in the upper right-hand corner of the screen to return to the first page of the design worksheet. Your new family sedan is now ready to be tested. Click on Make to instruct your technicians to build a prototype car. A keyboard input box will appear. Type in the name of your new model of car and press Enter. When you are asked to confirm the building of the car, click on Yes. The Testing Screen will appear. Note If you want to make an alteration to a design that already exists (don't do this now!) you can do so by bringing up the old design, making the changes, and then clicking on Make. When the keyboard input box with the name of the original design appears, simply press Enter. You will be asked to confirm that you want to replace the old design with the modified design. If you click on Yes, your old design will be removed and replaced with the modified car. Test Your New Car Before putting your new car on the market, you'll want to have it tested to see how well it's made. For simplicities sake you're going to order the full range of possible tests. At the bottom of the column of readouts on the left side of the screen, click on the button marked Test All. Notice on the printout at the bottom right that the testing costs have been added to the total. Just above the printout click on the red button marked Run. The materials and testing costs will be immediately subtracted from your company funds, and the view screen at the top right will show you what happens as your new car is put through its paces. The Overall rating that appears near the bottom of the left column of readouts is a number on a scale of zero to one hundred. The closer the number is to one hundred, the better the car performed. When the tests are completed, click on the Return to Factory box (the square at the far right end of the Info Bar that has a silhouette of the factory pictured on it.) Hire Some Workers From the Factory Screen, click on the Administration building (grey, at lower left). The Administration Office appears. Move the pointer to the door on the far wall, check that the Message Box reads Personnel Office, and click. The Personnel Menu will appear. There are two boxes on this panel, one for Assembly Workers and one for Technicians. You will notice that you already have some of each type of worker on the payroll. Your technicians are listed as idle because you haven't assigned them to projects yet (you'll do that in a moment.) In the Assembly Workers box, click on Hire. A new kind of panel, called a keyboard input box, will appear. this panel will have a text entry window and various mouse command buttons which will be different on different keyboard input boxes. Click on the Plus sign to add assembly workers to your payroll. (You can hold down the button to scroll the number more quickly.) Click on Done, and you will see the totals change. Your new assembly workers are on the payroll, but are still idle. In the same box, click on Wages. Set the assembly workers' wages in the same way that you set the number of workers. Then click on Hire in the Technicians box and hire some technicians, and click on Wages to set their pay. Click on the Done button in the upper right-hand corner to exit the Personnel Menu and then click on the Return to Factory box. Note In addition to Factories and Research Labs, you also have Sales Offices as part of your company (as you'll see in a moment.) However, your Sales Offices are automatically staffed - you do not need to assign workers to your Sales Offices. Start a New Assembly Line From the Main Factory Screen, click on the Sales/Factories building (blue roof with skylight, on the lower right.) The Territory Map will appear. You will see a light blue Sales Office building and a black Factory building near the North eastern USA, your starting territory. Click on the North-eastern USA territory to bring up the Sales and Factories Menu for that area. Your next step is to get your factory producing your new family sedan. First, you want to upgrade your factory's equipment so that it can produce cars more efficiently. In the Factory box, click on Raise. This increases the level of technology in use in your factory, at a cost which increases at the level of your factory increases this cost will be immediately deducted from your funds when the factory is improved, so you will be asked to confirm your expansion order. Click on Yes, and your factory will go to technology level two. Next, in the Factory box, click on Detail. A panel will appear showing you the five assembly lines that could run in that factory. Line 1 should already show that you have a number of workers putting together your first model of car. Click on Line 2 to highlight it, then click on Model. A lettered list will appear of all your sixteen current models of car (only the first two slots will have models in them at this point, of course, because you've only created two models.) Click on your new family sedan to highlight it, then click on Use. Your new family sedan will be started on that line. Click on Assign to put workers on that line. Use the Plus button to put the idle workers you hired in Personnel to work building your new family sedan. Click Done when you finish. Your car will now be produced. Sell Your New Car In the Sales Offices box on the Sales and Factories Menu, click on Detail. A lettered list will appear, showing you what cars are on sale at that office and for what price. A check mark by the name of the model indicates that it is being offered for sale. You will see that your original model is already on sale for a certain price, and that your new family sedan is on the list but not being sold (since the box is not checked.) To start selling your new design, click on the list to highlight the new family sedan, then click on Price. A keyboard input box will appear. While you can use the Plus and Minus buttons to set prices for your cars (as with other keyboard input boxes), you will probably find that it's tedious to wait for the numbers to scroll up to the right price. Instead, simply type in the number and press Enter. This alternate method of entering numbers will work on all keyboard input boxes. Set prices for both of your models, and click on Done when you finish. Your new family sedan is now on sale in the North-eastern USA, alongside your original model. Click on Supply to set the supply lines so your dealers will have cars delivered to their showrooms. A panel with a three-slot list will appear, showing where the cars on sale at that location are being shipped from. You have a factory in the North-eastern USA, so the first supply line for each model is automatically set so that cars come in from that area. Since the supply line is already set you don't need to change anything here, so click on Done to get out of Supply and then click on Exit to get out of the Sales Office Detail box. Open a New Sales Office Now you're going to expand your operations a little by opening a new sales office in a different territory, one where you don't have a factory. On the Sales and Factories Menu, click twice on Next. This button, and the Prev button, allow you to cycle through the sixteen territories in the game (each territory has a different menu.) You should now be at the menu for the South-eastern USA territory. In the Sales Offices box, click on open. Opening a new office costs money so you will be asked to confirm your decision. Click on Yes, and the cost will be automatically deducted from your company's funds. Click on Detail. You will see that neither of your cars is being sold in the Southeast yet. Highlight your family sedan, and set the price the same way you did above. Click on Supply and notice that you don't have any supply lines set up to bring your cars from the factory to the showroom. the first slot on the supply list should already be highlighted. Click on the Plus button. "NE USA" should appear on the list. Your family sedans will now be shipped from your factory in the North-eastern USA to your sales office in the Southeast. Click on Done to return to the Sales Detail Box. Highlight your new family sedan, set the price, and start a supply line running from your factory in the North-eastern USA just as you did for your family sedan. Then click on Exit to get out of the Sales Office Detail Box. Just to see a summary of your company's facilities, click on List. A panel will appear showing you where you have sales offices and factories. You should see one sales office and a level two factory in the North-eastern USA and a sales office in the South-eastern USA. Click on Done to close the panel, and then on Done to close the main Sales and factories Menu. Click on the Return to Factory box to get back to the main screen. Invest in Research In order to get new technology for your cars, you need to invest in research and development. You have hired Technicians, but you need to assign them to projects. Move the mouse pointer to the Research building (pink, lower right) and click. The Research Screen will appear. Put the mouse pointer over the technician at the bottom centre of the screen and click to bring up the Research Menu. You will see a list of the seven automobile parts that go into making up your cars. Click on Engines to highlight that component, then click on Assign. Click on the Plus sign to assign five technicians to do research on automobile engines, then click on Done. In the same way, highlight Brakes and assign five technicians, then do the same thing with Suspension. When you've finished, click on Done to exit the Research Menu and then on the Return to Factory box to return to the main screen. Fire Some Workers In order to fire some workers, you first have to take them off of their current assignments so that they become idle. Click on Sales/Factories, and then click on North-eastern USA to bring up the Sales and factories Menu for that territory. In the factories box, click on Detail. Click on Line to highlight it, then click on Free. A keyboard input box will appear. Use the Plus button to enter the number five and press Enter. You will see that the number of workers on the line decreases, and the number next to "Idle Workers" goes to five. Click on Done to get out of the Factory Detail box, then Done again to exit the Sales and Factories panel, then click on the Return to Factory box. From the Main Factory Screen, click on the Administration building. In the Administration Office, click on the Personnel door to bring up the Personnel Menu. In the Assembly Workers box on the Personnel Menu, click on the button marked Fire. A keyboard input box will appear. Use the Plus key to enter the number five in the box and press Enter. You will see that those five idle workers have been taken off the payroll and added to the Available Workers group. Click on Done to exit the Personnel Menu and then on the Return to Factory box to return to the main screen. Advertise Your Wares If you want people to buy your cars, you have to advertise them. From the Main Factory Screen, click on Marketing (the brown building in the centre.) The Marketing Office screen will appear. You will need to spend money on marketing separately for each territory in which you have a sales office. Money spent on advertising is subtracted from your company funds at the end of each month. Move the mouse pointer over the billboard with the car on it (outside the window) and click. You can now use the keyboard input box to spend money on billboard advertisements. Click on Prev or Next to cycle through the territories until NE USA is showing. Click on the Plus sign to spend money on billboards (the cost will go up by preset amounts for each type of advertising) Click on Next until you find the panel for SE USA, and again click on the Plus sign, then click on Done. You are now advertising your cars on billboards across the entire Eastern United States. Move the mouse pointer over the papers on the desk and click. From this panel you can spend money to advertise in newspapers and magazines. Again there is a separate panel for each territory. Use the Next and Prev buttons to locate the North-eastern USA panel. The slot for Newspapers should already be highlighted. Click on the Plus button to spend some money on newspaper ads. Click on Business to highlight that line, then click on the Plus button again to spend some money advertising in business magazines. Change to the panel for the South-eastern USA, spend money on newspapers and business magazines in that territory the same way you did in the Northeast, then click on Done. Click on the Return to factory box to get back to the main screen. End Your Turn Now you are ready to end the month and see how well your business strategies have done for your company. Click on the Month End box (the square at the right end of the Info Bar with the calendar grid on it.) The Month End summary panel will appear. Each of the actions you have taken within the past month will have a red check mark by it. Actions you have not taken will not be marked. Since you have done everything you need to this month, click on Yes to confirm that you want to end the month. (If you click on No you will be returned to the Main Factory Screen to take more actions.) The screen will dim briefly to show time passing. Depending on how well you did in the first month, you may see a Newsflash - a panel showing a newspaper and giving you some additional information. To continue after you've read the Newsflash, click any mouse button. If you do not receive a Newsflash, you will go directly to your Profit/Loss statement (see below.) Check Your Progress At the start of every new month, you will be presented with your company's Profit/Loss statement - the most basic indicator of your company's health. The first column details your expenses for the current month, while the second details your income. The total profit or loss for the month appears at the bottom of the left column. Initially, the right column shows you your Income by Territory. Move the mouse pointer over the column heading that says Income and click. The column will then display your Income by Model instead. Click again on the column heading to return to income by territory. When you are done examining your balance sheet, click on the Close Report box (the square now appearing at the right end of the Info Bar, showing a stack of papers with a left-pointing red arrow superimposed.) You will return to the Main Factory Screen to start your second turn. Keep an Eye on the Competition A useful thing to do at the start of each new turn is to check on how your competitors are doing. Find the Administration building again and click on it. When the Administration Office appears, move the mouse pointer over the papers spread out on the desk in the lower centre of the screen, and click. The Reports and Graphs Menu will appear. The fourth selection in the first column says Compare. Click on this button to bring up a report on your competitors profits and losses for the month. Your company appears at the top with your three rivals below. If you have done better than all or most of the competition you are off to a good start. If not, you may need to restructure your company. When you are done reading the Competition Report, click on the Close Report box to return you to the Reports and Graphs Menu. Click on Done to close the menu and return you to the Administration Office screen. Save Your Game While still in the Administration Office, move the mouse pointer over the file cabinet at the right side of the screen and click. The File Management and Game Options Menu will appear. Click on the second button from the top, marked Save to bring up the Saved Game List. You can store up to twenty saved games. At this point, all the slots should read Empty, and the slot marked A should be highlighted. Click on this slot. A keyboard input box will appear. Type in a name for your game and press Enter. You will see a message that the game is being saved, followed by a message saying "Game Saved OK!" Right click to exit back to the Administration Office. You can now continue this game, or start over and begin a new game. (To do this easily, return to the file cabinet in the Administration Office and click on Restart.) Shortcuts for Quicker Navigation: The Toolbar Icons Once you are familiar with the basic purpose of each department you may find it faster and easier to navigate between them using the Toolbar Icons, the six small picture boxes that appear on the Info Bar just to the right of the Message Box. In order from left to right, they are: Disk Icon: Click here to go straight the Saved Game List and save your game. Bar Graph Icon: Click here to go to the Administration Office. World Map Icon: Click here to go to the territory map for Sales and Factories. Drawing Tools Icon: Click here to go to Research. Newspaper Icon: Click here to go to the Marketing office. Auto Icon: Click here to go to the Design worksheet In addition, you may prefer to handle some aspects of the game with the keyboard instead. The keyboard commands can be found on the enclosed Keyboard Command Card. This ends the Detroit Tutorial. For more details and additional game options, please refer to the Detroit Owner's Manual. MANUAL NOTES AND NEW FEATURES Notes Firing Workers In order to fire workers, you need to first make them Idle. Do this by using the Free buttons on the Research Menu and Factory Detail screens to remove workers from their current research projects or assembly lines. Then go to the Personnel Menu and use the Fire button to lay them off. Car Color On the first page of the Design worksheet in the upper right-hand corner, is a color grid. Use the greater-than and less-than arrows under the grid to cycle through the colors until you find one you like for your car. The color of the car has no effect on how well it sells. Design Worksheet The layout of the buttons and displays on the first page of the Design worksheet have been altered from that described in the manual. No buttons have been removed or added. Model Price The Model Price button in the Sales Office Detail keyboard input box no longer changes the model price by a percentage. Instead, simply enter in the price in dollars for that model and the price will be changed to that value everywhere the car is being sold. Close Reports Icon The Close Reports Icon has been split into two buttons. The top half (stack of papers and arrow) functions as described in the manual. The bottom half which shows a printer, allows you to print out a hard copy of the report currently showing on the screen (See below in the Additions section for more on this option.) Supply Lines and Marketing When selecting territories to target for marketing or to use for supply lines, you will only see the territories in which you've put facilities. Model Report In the Model report, the numbers you can see for the cost to build the car are displayed even if the car is being built in another territory and shipped in. This is so you can see what profit you are making on the car in each territory, if you have it priced differently in different regions. So, for example, if you are selling your first model car in the South-eastern USA, but are building them in the North-eastern USA, you will still see building costs listed for the South-eastern USA, even though you are not actually building the cars there. Car Types Not all types of cars can be built at the start of the game. More modern types of cars (compacts, hatchbacks, and so on) will appear as time progresses. New Features Newsflashes At times in the game, you will see a Newsflash at the end of the month. Newsflashes will describe current events that might be of interest to your company. Updating Models If you wish to update a model of car - for example, to put in a new brake system without starting from scratch on the Design worksheet, simply bring up the old model, make the change, and click on Make. When the name box appears with the old model name in it, press Enter. When you are asked if you want to replace the old design, click on Yes and the model will be updated. (The original design will be lost.) Public Domain Technology After two car companies have discovered a new technology, it will automatically become available to the other two car companies. Printing Hard Copies of Reports You can now get printouts of your company's reports if you have a printer compatible with the program. To print out a report, click on the Printer icon at the right end of the Info Bar, underneath the Close Reports icon. To print reports using the keyboard, press F3. Strikes If you do not keep your workers happy, they may go on strike and halt production. When this happens, a Strike Resolution panel will appear to give you options for how to settle the strike. New Reports There are three new Reports for you to use to gauge your progress. Model Comparison. Click on the Model Comp option to see reports on how your prices stack up against those of your competitors. Click on the territory name to change to other territories, on the model name to view other models of your cars, and on the competitor company's name to view the other competitors. Consultant Report: Click on Consultant to hire an outside expert to evaluate your company and its product line. This report, like the Demand report, needs to be purchased. Once the first report has been purchased, you can choose to view the most recent report you bought or to order a new report. Media Review Report: Click on Media Rev to see what the critics think of your current models. Click on the company name to see what they think of your competitors' products. Click on the page number to view the other pages of the report. The Mega-Menu A new option has been added to the Sales and Factories panel. Between the Sales Offices box and the Factories box is a button labelled Mega-Menu. Clicking on this button brings up a screen in which all the functions of the Sales Office Detail and the Factor Detail panels have been combined into one panel for easy reference and access. Once you are familiar with the game, you may find this panel to be more convenient to use than the normal panels. STRATEGY HINTS Save your game frequently at first in case disaster strikes. Invest in research. It's worth it. Be sure to advertise. If a particular type of car isn't selling, it's because there's no demand for it. Some types of cars will not sell at all at the start of the game Since there are historical aspect to DETROIT, not all territories will have a demand for cars at the start of the game. Demand will develop in more areas as time passes. Look out for Newsflashes telling you when a territory is ready to start buying. Demand level varies by season. Plan accordingly Demand always drops drastically during wartime. If sales are poor, consider opening more sales offices, spending more on marketing, or improving your cars. It's better to have several smaller factories than one large one. The more lines you have running, the greater variety of cars you can produce. Build the cars near the consumers to save money on transport fees. There is an optimal number of workers for each assembly line and research project. If you go above that number, you will get less benefit from each new worker. Improving the level of a factory allows you to make the same number of cars with fewer workers. It also allows you to fit more workers on a line without overcrowding them. Don't hesitate to fire workers and stop assembly lines if you're building up too large a stock supply. While having a small stock its a good thing in case demand suddenly increases, too large a stock is a waste of resources. Keep an eye on your labour cost for your assembly lines by checking the Model Report to see what you're spending. If you're spending too much, cut back on the number of workers. Look after your workers. Pay them decent wages and give them benefits. Striking workers don't make you any money. Workers that get benefits are more productive. Upgrade your cars whenever possible. Demand is higher for cars fitted with the cutting edge of technology. An expensive car with the latest options will sell better than a cheaper outmoded car. Obsolete cars won't sell. Expand your company. Try to find territories where demands exists and where your competition isn't producing, and sell your cars there. A captive audience will pay more. Keep your prices competitive, but be sure to make a decent profit. You're here to make money, not friends.